


Beards

by humanbean



Category: Glee
Genre: Coming Out, Friendship, Gen, Mild Sexual Content, Mostly Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 14:46:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5252180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanbean/pseuds/humanbean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer weighed the options in his mind. He could stay here, brag about having sex with a girl he’d hardly even touched, drink some more, make sure everyone knew how cool he was…</p><p>Or he could go and sit on the curb with Madison and her brother, and wait for her mom to pick them up. It would probably cost him some popularity points, but she had a smile like sunshine and he was already starting to trust her more than he trusted anyone else in this godforsaken school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beards

**Author's Note:**

> I've always found that there's this easy familiarity between Spencer and Madison that fascinates me. I've wondered why that was.

_October 2014. A house party in Lima, Ohio._

 

            “How about that one?” Brett said, nodding to one small brunette in the knot of Cheerios. “Madison McCarthy.”

            Spencer recognised Madison, but only vaguely. She was a freshman, one of the newest cheerleaders on the squad. He had seen her around school before, and she was pretty enough- she had bright green eyes and a lithe, athletic figure- but she didn’t make him _feel_ things the way he was supposed to.

            The way everyone else did.

            “ _Dude._ ” he said, with false enthusiasm, and they bumped fists. “I am so in there.”

            Word had it that Brett threw this party after the first football game of the season every year, but Spencer was only in his second year of high school, only just on the team, and this was the first time he’d been invited. Privately, he thought there was a reason he’d never been before, but he said nothing out loud. The alcohol made his throat burn, and the pounding music was making him breathless, but he could say so. He was supposed to be here. He was on the football team. He was supposed to be here, and he was supposed to like it.

            He downed the rest of his cup because he thought it might help.

            It just burned some more.

            Spencer swooped into the girls’ conversation the way he’d seen so many other guys do before. He’d learned a while ago that there wasn’t much actual emotion that went into this process- it was sort of formulaic. He made all the right comments in all the right places, made sure to look at Madison a lot, and it wasn’t long before they were stealing away into one of the empty rooms.

            Madison was even more inexperienced than Spencer was, that much was clear. She kissed him with purpose but without any particular skill, and when he reached over to undo her dress (because honestly, they both knew why they were there), she wouldn’t let him touch it. As close as they were, in the room with the lights turned off, Spencer could feel her face heat up and hear her breathing shudder when she reached behind her and fumbled with her own zipper. There was nothing sexy about this. He wondered if it would be different with someone else, but all he knew was that he didn’t want to do it.

            He stripped off his shirt, maybe to make her comfortable but maybe because that was what you did, but he couldn’t bring himself to undress completely. He unzipped his pants and he knelt over her on the bed, and then he just stopped.

            She was _right there_ and she was staring up at him with her big green eyes and it would be so easy to just do it…

            He rolled off her.

            “I can’t.” he admitted, cheeks burning with shame.

            There was a second or two where Madison didn’t respond, as if she’d been left hanging and needed a second to reformulate the script in her head. Then she grabbed her dress from the edge of the bed and held it to her chest, sitting up to look at him. “Have you been drinking?” she asked, solicitous and genuinely helpful in a way that compounded everything. “I think the alcohol makes it harder for you to…”

            “No, that’s not what I mean.” Spencer said, waving a hand. He sucked in a breath and blew it back out.

            “I think I’m gay.”

            “Oh.” she blinked at him, owlish and curious, and then slid off the bed and started picking up her clothes. “Okay.”

            There was something about the way she said it, the calm indifference, that both floored and angered Spencer. He sat up and looked at her. “ _Okay?_ That’s it?”

            “Well, yeah, I guess.” She didn’t look at him, just kept her back turned as she pulled her dress on over her head. “I mean yikes, if seeing me naked was enough to turn you off women altogether, but…”

            That brought an unexpected snort of laughter from Spencer, and he picked up one of the pillows from the bed to hit her with it. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

            She wriggled all the way into her dress, pulled her underwear back on. “I don’t know you well enough to be surprised, if that’s what you want.” she said. “You are what you are. No one can change that, not even you. Lights?”

            He didn’t understand the question for a second, until he looked at her and saw her reaching for the light switch. He nodded, and then agreed out loud in case she couldn’t see him. She flicked the light on, tossed Spencer his shirt (which he’d flung away the way they did in movies, unlike Madison, who’d kept her clothes within reach) and rejoined him on the bed.

            She rocked on the bed a few times sitting, as if she was testing it, and then got up and started jumping on it. Spencer found that if he looked the right way, he could see right up her dress. Spencer found that he didn’t care.

            She bounced a few more times and then abruptly collapsed like a cheap lawn chair, so she was sitting and looking at him. “Truth be told, I didn’t really want to do this either.” she admitted. “We’re both in here for the same reason- because we felt like we had to prove something.”

            “Felt?” He’d picked up on the past tense. “Not anymore?”

            “Well, see, I don’t have to figure it out anymore.” she said. She leaned forward to stage whisper into his ear. “Turns out, my partner’s gay.”

            He laughed and shoved her away, and then grabbed her so she wouldn’t fall off the bed. She lay down and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling as if she was seeing something.

            “Honestly, I’d much rather be at home watching movies with my brother.”

            And _right_ , _that_ was the other thing he’d heard about her. “Your brother.”

            She sat up, bolt straight and immediate, eyebrows arched like a challenge. “What about my brother?”

            “Nothing. I just heard-”

            “What you hear isn’t always the truth, Spencer. You should know that.” She held his gaze with a startling sharpness and all of a sudden, her wide green eyes weren’t as childlike or innocent anymore. He looked away.

            “So what now?”

            Apparently satisfied, she lay back down onto the bed. “I dunno. Do you want to pretend we did it?” She seemed much more interested in seeing how high she could kick up her feet than in looking at him, but there was earnestness in her voice. An offering. “I’m really good at keeping secrets.”

            She stopped looking at her feet to peer at him sideways, and in that second Spencer thought he loved her.            “Maybe we could keep that secret for a little while.” he agreed, and she nodded.

            “I think I want to call my mom.” she said. “I don’t belong here. Neither does Mason. We’ll go home and watch movies, like I said.” There was a pause while she read his expression. “You’re free to come too, if you’d like.”

            Spencer weighed the options in his mind. He could stay here, brag about having sex with a girl he’d hardly even touched, drink some more, make sure everyone knew how cool he was…

            Or he could go and sit on the curb with Madison and her brother, and wait for her mom to pick them up. It would probably cost him some popularity points, but she had a smile like sunshine and he was already starting to trust her more than he trusted anyone else in this godforsaken school.

            “I think I’d like that.”

* * *

 

_September 2015. Football field. William McKinley High School._

 

 

            “Porter.” The sound of his name stopped Spencer in his tracks. He hung back and let the rest of the team overtake him, before turning around to face the lone Cheerio remaining after practice.

            “McCarthy.” he replied. “What do you want?”

            “They’ve started back up the old glee club.” she said. “Just thought I’d tell you. I thought maybe you might want to join?”

            She was looking at him with the same clarity that she had back on the day when they met. Her eyes were still oddly bright. Spencer looked away.

            “And what, sing show tunes?” he asked, with a bit of a scoff. “That’s a little gay even for me, don’t you think?”

            Madison raised an eyebrow. “I hope you remember that you once spent an entire night watching sing along Disney princess movies with me and Mason in our living room.” she said. “You’re not fooling anyone, Mr Tough Guy.”

            “I beg to differ.” he said, with a gesture in the direction that the rest of the athletes had gone. “I’m fooling lots of people.”

            “You’re not fooling me.” Madison replied. “You’re not fooling yourself. Isn’t that enough?”

            Spencer took in a breath, and then sighed it out through his nose. “So this glee club.” he said, ignoring Madison’s satisfied smile. “You just want me to join? No ulterior motives?”

            “Well, of course there’s an ulterior motive- we’re trying to get enough members to compete at sectionals. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, though.” She reached forward to give him a playful shove. “Come on, I’ll put in a good word for you.”

            “Don’t think you need to.” he shrugged. “I knew about the glee club- the old students seem creepily obsessed with recruiting me.”

            She laughed. “Better yet. So will I see you?”

            Spencer took a long second, biting the inside of his cheek while he considered the offer. “I’ll… think about it.” he told her.

            “You do that.” she said, and then turned and walked off the field like everyone else had.

            He had some searching to do.


End file.
